Monday, December 19, 2011

UEPS stock alert, advisory sell Net 1 shares

I've been using Easypay to pay municipal and Telkom accounts for the past 13 years (since 1998). The company was an offshoot from Pick 'n Pay who always acknowledged themselves to be more of a financial institution than a retailer (they make money off the cash flow rather off the goods), and they had been accepting Telkom and municipal payments for many years prior to the online payment company Easypay was established. The Easypay website and system was simple and easy to use, one could save ones account details and login monthly (anytime) to make payments with ones credit card. It took a few minutes....

The website and systems worked flawlessly for more than 13 years... then some bright spark thought it must be upgraded and changed everything. The new site took about an hour to work out how it worked, one needed to call the support line in order to get it working, and finally the banks stopped allowing them to transaction (Both ABSA and FNB that I am aware of). Now they say on their site:

EasyPay's SOLUTION will launch in 26 days: As you are probably aware, a number of reports have been published in the press regarding Credit Card fraudsters targeting EasyPay's website. This led to ABSA, and other financial institutions erroneously suspending all credit card transactions processed through EasyPay's website. Some banks inferred or simply blamed EasyPay for the failure of their own Credit Card security systems. "We at EasyPay have always adhered to all the rules as imposed by the banks."

Yes, Easypay you have always adhered to the banks rules and your new system failed because the users could not work it, and because your old system worked there is no wonder as to why the bad press is happening! It is so clear that Easypay are playing with words to try save face. We know that it's not fraud, it's the systems you built and changed to (which cause the people using it to revoke the payments they tried to make), since the new system is bad and customers revoked payments as they did not intend to make some that the system forced. I went through the whole process personally and I've spoken to others who had the same experiences.

Now they say "EasyPay have considered the weaknesses of the current credit card security protocols, and will in the following weeks educate our users with regard to a newly patented system, developed by EasyPay's holding company, Net1 UEPS Technologies, Inc"

Sad and disappointing from a consumer point of view, I can also see them spending heaps of money on even more systems development that will shed even more customers. I'm disappointed, Pick 'n Pay must have sold out... anyone know the best alternatives?

3 Comments:

Just read off the other press that "Chief executive of EasyPay, Serge Balamant, said the company had only found out that Absa had suspended its credit card transactions with EasyPay when he read about it in a report in Die Burger" - I guess that says it all... and that was a few days after FNB was blocking all Easypay transactions (albeit they did re-enable them by the time ABSA announced).

oh dear, I see that 'Serge Balamant' is really 'Serge Belamant, the chief executive of Net1 UEPS Technologies, the holding company of Cash Paymaster Services (CPS), confirmed this week that Majali's companies, principally the Permit group, had partnered his firm.' --- someone with a smoking gun in his hand. See http://mg.co.za/article/2005-06-09-the-scandal-spreads

Yet another disappointing attempt to use "EasyPay >>> "a better way to pay" ... it's shocking how badly they are messing around their customers and the banks are simply not happy. I don't blame them, today I noted that they have major lack of service tracking, systems are broken and their costs are skyrocketing. Sadly I can advise that they are finished, I expect Net 1 has a limited future.

About Me

I'm involved in all things Internet. I became a computer scientist to assist people to use technology - as a tool to help them achieve more - with less effort. I've dedicated years of volunteer time in building the Internet Society of South Africa and Internet society worldwide.

My great grandparents were mostly from Lithuania and had to flee. They chose to come to South Africa where I've lived most of my life. I'm committed to freedom and the pursuit thereof, forever learning and growing to be the best I can be.

I'm a single father with three wonderful children. We live in Sea Point, Cape Town.